Shenny Cooper for the Win
by Jaycie Victory
Summary: A collection of unrelated drabbles and ficlets which celebrate all things Shenny. Two ready; three more on the boil. Rated T because some are a little more adult than others.
1. The Nominal Triplicate Postulate

**A/N As a few people very kindly requested it, I'm currently writing a longer BBT fic called The Covalent Bond Corollary. I don't want to start posting it until I have an overarching plot clear in my mind, so I started jotting down short Shenny stories to get me in the mood. One keeps leading to another. This is the first.**

* * *

**The Nominal Triplicate Postulate**

_Three times Sheldon says her name_

"Penny!" Sheldon yelped, when she sat in his spot.

"Penny," Sheldon breathed, when she stole her first kiss.

"Penny," Sheldon smiled, when she held her hand out for the ring.


	2. The Freudian Cookie Paradigm

**The Freudian Cookie Paradigm**

The cookie sat on the plate, glistening and untouched.

Amy Farrah Fowler sidled in, eyeing it sidelong.

Slowly, she circled towards the plate, gradually closing in, like a spiral with the cookie at its epicentre.

Just as she reached out to touch it, Penny appeared from nowhere and slapped her hand away.

"Amy! No!"

"But, Penny," Amy objected, "that's my cookie!"

"No, it's not. It's on _my_ coffee table, in _my_ apartment – it was mine first!"

"But you left it here," Amy pointed out. "It's been here ages, and you never touched it."

"Only because I didn't know I wanted it," Penny countered.

The corners of Amy's mouth turned down in a frown; her hand crept out towards the cookie again.

Penny went Junior Rodeo on her ass.

Squaring up until they were toe-to-toe, she widened her eyes and bared her teeth in a snarl. The voice that emerged was somewhere between a growl and a roar:

"MINE!"

Amy quailed and fled.

Smiling in triumph, Penny grabbed the cookie and sank her mouth into its biscuit, mallow layers.

She was unprepared for the pleasure which exploded on her tongue.

Eyes rolling, she found herself torn between warring impulses to cram as much of the cookie into her mouth as she could and to savour every bite.

She compromised by lovingly lapping at the fluffy filling, drawing its sweetness down into her throat.

She had chocolate all over her hands; she had chocolate all round her mouth.

She didn't care.

Unable to contain herself any longer, Penny moaned in bliss.

"Mmmm: Moonpie."

* * *

The sound of her voice woke Penny up.

Slowly, she became aware of her surroundings – flushed cheeks, crashing heartbeat, the sheets twisted round her body – then bolted upright in shock.

Penny might not be as smart as a certain theoretical physicist, but even she knew a Freudian dream when it smacked her in the face.

Hand stealing to press against her forehead, her voice emerged as a stunned whisper:

"Ho-ly _crap_ on a cracker!"


	3. The Frying Pan Amplification

**The Frying Pan Amplification**

**A/N In an interview in 2009, in response to the question of whether Sheldon could ever be romantically involved with someone, Jim Parsons said she'd better come armed with a frying pan, because "you're going to have to hit him on the head and tell him, 'Psst! You're attracted to me.'"**

**I then saw a gorgeous Shenny tumblr on deviantART (Google Gwendy85 and "Sheldon, Penny and a frying pan"), and had to have a go at a fic...**

* * *

Sighing, Penny eased her aching feet out of her three-inch heels (heels because she'd been feeling dowdy in her Cheesecake Factory uniform and wanted to pretty herself up a little; three-inch because she still wanted to be able to walk at the end of her shift).

As she bent down, a tendril of hair that had worked free from her messy up-do fell in front of her face. Her nose wrinkled as it inhaled stale beer, fryer grease and a variety of other vaguely gross scents. She always seemed to smell worse after the late shift.

Suddenly longing for a bath, Penny walked towards her bathroom, stripping and discarding layers of clothing as she went. Several minutes later, sweet-smelling once more and clad in her favourite vest and hot pants combo, Penny's body had relaxed but her mind was still wired. (She swore she could still hear cutlery ringing in her ears.)

Sleep wasn't coming any time soon.

Maybe some warm milk would help...

Sadly, an inspection of her fridge revealed half a carton of expired orange juice and a wrinkled onion.

Penny found herself thinking longingly of the meticulously arranged refrigerator next door with its three different kinds of milk (Sheldon had 1% with his morning cereal, 2% when he made Sunday pancakes and whole milk with his evening cocoa; and wasn't it a sad statement that she knew that?).

Penny knew that Leonard was working nights at CalTech again, but Leonard wasn't the problem: Sheldon was the one with the Klingon hearing, or whatever it was called, and the one who would flip if he knew she was stealing milk from him again... This called for stealth.

Fishing her emergency 4A keys from the specially assigned bowl by the door (an installation which Dr. Whackadoodle had insisted on after she made him help her find her own keys for the fourth time), Penny padded across the hall on bare feet and eased 4A's door open.

The apartment was in darkness but Penny didn't want to risk switching lights on and waking Sheldon. Thankfully, through a combination of familiarity and Sheldon's refusal to change anything, ever, she was able to navigate her way to the fridge without incident.

The fridge proved to be even better stocked than Penny had anticipated. Eyes rounding in delight, Penny was distracted from her desire for warm milk by the chocolate fondant pudding glistening under its saran wrap.

Lifting up the wrap, she had just brought a well-coated finger to her lips when a voice rang out from the shadows, deep and guttural:

"Infidel! Purloiner of dairy – ye shall pay for this treachery!"

A tall figure cloaked in darkness started towards her, distorted, coal-black face snarling and fiery sword bared. To Penny it was as though the devil himself had appeared ready to drag her back to hell with him.

Screaming in terror, her fingers closed on the nearest object to hand and she swung with all her cornhusker might.

There was a cartoonishly loud *DOING* as the object ricocheted off the figure's head; it swayed for a moment, sword falling to the floor, then collapsed like a poleaxed cow.

Panting in triumph, Penny groped for the nearest light switch and almost had another heart attack for an entirely new reason.

Her failed attempts at dating Leonard notwithstanding, Penny spoke enough geek to immediately identify the flaming red "sword" as a lightsabre and the distorted black face as the helmet of a Darth Vader costume. With a sense of foreboding, Penny gently manoeuvred the helmet over the apparently-not-an-evil-intruder's head and had her worst suspicions confirmed.

Yep.

She'd just cold-clocked Sheldon with a frying pan.

* * *

Sheldon's eyes snapped open, Vulcan hearing on alert.

After a few seconds he determined the provenance of what had roused him: someone was moving around in the kitchen.

Mind working even more rapidly from the epinephrine injection administered by his sympathetic nervous system, he swiftly assimilated data such as time of night, lightness of tread, the intruder's action – opening the door to the refrigerator – and, most damning of all, his eidetic grasp of Penny's work roster.

It was 2am. Penny would have returned from her shift precisely 47 minutes ago. As was often the case following the late shift, Penny must have found her circadian rhythms under threat and, like the wolverine he had once compared her to, was scavenging for soporific sustenance.

Thief!

Again!

Well, no more.

Nostrils flaring, Sheldon swung his legs out of the bed, mentally formulating the minatory monologue with which he planned to flay her, then paused as his gaze alighted on his closet and another avenue occurred to him. One far more likely to leave a lasting effect.

Most appropriately, a villainous smile stole across his face. Someone was about to fall victim to a classic Dr. Cooper practical joke.

* * *

Several minutes and one comatose Darth Vader later, Sheldon slowly regained consciousness.

His head was nestled in something warm and soft; chocolate-sweetened breath from an anxiously bent head ruffled his hair. On some level Sheldon was aware he should be deeply disturbed by this, but all he felt was drowsy contentment.

"Sheldon? Sheldon, honey? Are you okay?"

Sheldon opened his eyes to green and gold: all he could see was thickly-lashed iridescence. His vision panned out and incorporated skin like warm honey, plump full lips and tumbling gold curls.

Without warning, his mouth dessicated, his palms moistened and he was suddenly afflicted by pronounced cardiac dysrhythmia

This wasn't the first time Sheldon had had this reaction in Penny's vicinity: there had been other occasions which had garnered the same effect – a conversation over a whiteboard several years earlier; an expression on her face when he wore a suit of her choosing; a Saturnalia hug – but he'd never been able to conclusively pin down its inception – allergies? flu season? gas? In the end he put them down to physiological anomalies. (After the comprehensive strep tests, blood works and full body scan came back clear.)

But the symptoms had never been this strong, and Penny's proximity had rarely been so close. (He'd certainly never lain in her lap before.)

Sheldon was a man of science. Having formulated a hypothesis, he had no choice but to test it.

Slowly, he reached up and touched Penny's cheek. The look of concern on her face increased even as the physiological effects exponentially increased in turn.

"Penny, are you familiar with the fabled, ancient Greek scholar Archimedes who determined a method for calculating the volume of an object with an irregular shape when he got into his bath and noticed that the level of water rose, thereby proving that water is incompressible?"

Penny blinked, then smiled in relief. "Well, you're definitely okay if you're capable of that level of jibber-jabber."

Sheldon's hand went from touching to stroking. Penny's eyelids fluttered in shock; his respiration began to hitch.

"He is also attributed with coining the Greek expression which is employed to celebrate a breakthrough discovery."

Levering himself up on one elbow, he reached up with his other hand and cupped the back of her head, tugging her down until her lips met his.

After a few shocked seconds, Penny's lips softened deliciously against his own.

After a few seconds more, her hands were tightening in his hair and she was clambering into his lap.

This close her scent was intoxicating; Sheldon recognised the vanilla body scrub from one of the multiple gift baskets he had presented her with (she had recently informed him she was still working her way through them) but underlying that, mingling with it, was something infinitely more intriguing.

Sheldon found himself running his nose along her neck, inhaling deeply. He wondered if she tasted as good as she smelt. Experimentally, he touched his tongue to her skin. Penny made an involuntary whimpering noise, so he tried it again.

Trapping his face between her hands, she dragged his lips back to hers and opened her mouth. Cautiously, Sheldon mimicked her action. When her tongue started exploring, his cardiac rhythms became so erratic he broke the kiss, concerned he was about to go into arrest.

They stared into each other's eyes: Penny's were wide with wonder, desire and hope; Sheldon's were shining, too, giddy with the fervour of scientific discovery.

"Eureka," he breathed.

Then kissed her again.


	4. The Possibility Theorem

**The Possibility Theorem**

**A/N Really chuffed that people seem to be enjoying these stories. It's lovely to see people favouriting and following it, but the reviews are what really make me smile, so thank you very much.**

**This fic is based around 6x14 .**

* * *

"_I dwell in possibility" ~ Emily Dickinson_

* * *

When Penny was a little girl, the whole world lay before her.

Sun-haired and sunny-natured, she won the hearts of everyone she met, could wrap anyone around her finger. Not because she was spoiled, but because everyone who met her loved her.

Why? Because she loved the world.

It shimmered with promise, with new places to explore and new things to experience.

The smallest things enchanted her. One golden summer she spent hours just watching a caterpillar making its way back and forth across a low-hanging branch.

Her dad had come across her nose to nose with it, giggling.

"What you doing there, Slugger?"

"Watching the 'pillar," she chirped.

"That's nice, so long as all you do is watch," he cautioned. "You wouldn't wanna accidentally hurt it. Now, come on, Slugabed: day's far too fine for lying on your belly – this here's pitching weather!"

Penny happily ran off with her dad, but the next day she came back and without her father there the temptation proved too great. She searched along the branch, found the caterpillar, and picked it up, placing it in the palm of her hand.

The caterpillar curled up tightly in protest, yellow bristles quivering. No matter how much she coaxed, it refused to uncoil.

Her mother found her by the tree, lower lip wobbling and six-year-old heart breaking.

Her father would have punched her arm and told her to buck up; her mom pulled her into her arms and soothed the story from her.

"Oh, Penny," she said, when her daughter tearfully extended her hand and showed her treasure, "caterpillars don't like to be held."

"But I love it!" Penny wailed, hiccupping. "Why doesn't it love me?"

"Oh, honey, it's just not in its nature. It doesn't understand that you love it; it thinks you're trying to hurt it." She saw her daughter's sobs were subsiding into unhappy sniffs and continued: "The kindest thing you can do is put it back where you found it." And she helped Penny place it back on the tree.

The next day Penny returned to the tree, drawn in some way she didn't understand. She didn't try to touch the caterpillar again; instead she spent hours chatting away to it, watching it nibble on leaves, trying to involve it in her games. On one occasion she spotted a bird nearby, beady eye cocked her way. She ran towards it, waving her arms up and down and hollering as loudly as she could. She knew what birds ate.

But one day she went to the tree and couldn't find the caterpillar. She searched every leaf within her reach, but it was nowhere to be seen.

Even at this age Penny was tenacious, so she came back the next day... and the day after that... and the day after that.

Finally, during her usual leaf inspection, a flash of colour caught her eye: there was something glued to the branch – something orange and black was wriggling inside. Penny held her breath and waited.

Spellbound, she watched the beautiful creature that emerged, watched it fan itself gently, testing its wings. She knew what this was – she saw them every summer. She'd just had no idea that this was where they came from.

Without thinking, she held her hand out. The butterfly took its first short flight, settling on her outstretched hand, warming itself in the sun.

It didn't stay, of course; but when it launched itself high into the sky, all Penny felt was joy.

She ran home excitedly yelling.

When her parents explained to her that the butterfly was actually the caterpillar, that one could become the other, it was at this moment Penny started to believe that anything was possible.

The world shimmered with promise, and Penny shimmered along with it.

* * *

"_It's the possibility that keeps me going, not the guarantee" ~ Nicholas Sparks_

* * *

When Penny was 26, the world no longer quite shimmered.

Kurt had taken some of the shine off; a dozen guys just like him had taken a little more, and the Cheesecake Factory felt like it left her a little grimier every day.

But she still found joy in the world, took delight in the littlest things – like laundry night and kicking (Sheldon's) ass at Halo; like dancing the night away; like finding friendship in unexpected places.

Yes, the world didn't always shimmer – you couldn't always expect to get everything you wanted in life. She had had to accept that. More than once. But just when you were about to give up, when you thought it had been a cruel trick all along, you started a business, you landed a commercial (you received a hug).

So Penny still dreamed; still believed. Still believed that her big break could be just around the corner, that the future was written in the stars (that it was possible to fall in love at first sight).

* * *

"_A thought, even a possibility, can shatter and transform us" ~ Friedrich Nietzsche_

* * *

But for all her dreaming, for all the world's promise, there was one desire Penny had never allowed herself.

One that was so clearly out of reach she had managed to push it from her mind entirely. Managed to transmute it into the vaguely similar, the less intimidating (the less out of reach); the more manageable, easier, safer one (the one infinitely less dear).

Because no matter how much it intrigued her, the cute, spiky caterpillar would never become a butterfly, would never tolerate her touch. Would never change.

It was impossible.

Penny had accepted that years ago, had made her peace with it.

Or so she thought.

* * *

"_Are you saying someday you and Amy might actually get physical?"  
_"_It's a possibility." ~ Sheldon Cooper__  
_

* * *

She'd been so excited when she'd first heard the words; deeply shocked, but happy for her friend.

But the words burrowed deep; they took hold and wouldn't let go, opening up the door she thought she'd long since sealed, scattering preconceived notions and self-imposed restrictions to the wind.

Since that day, since those words, the world no longer shimmered.

Since that day, a potential future once thought impossible beckoned.

And blazed.


End file.
